Black Bird, Blue Road
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
In this historical fantasy novel, praised as a “rich, omen-filled journey that powerfully shows love and its limits*” and “propulsive, wise, and heartbreaking,”** Ziva will do anything to save her twin brother Pesah from his illness—even facing the Angel of Death himself. From Sydney Taylor Honor winner and National Jewish Book Award finalist Sofiya Pasternack.
Pesah has lived with leprosy for years, and the twins have spent most of that time working on a cure. Then Pesah has a vision: The Angel of Death will come for him on Rosh Hashanah, just one month away.
So Ziva takes her brother and runs away to find doctors who can cure him. But when they meet and accidentally free a half-demon boy, he suggests paying his debt by leading them to the fabled city of Luz, where no one ever dies—the one place Pesah will be safe.
They just need to run faster than The Angel of Death can fly...
(*Publishers Weekly, starred review; **Kirkus Reviews, starred review)
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this dazzling historical fantasy, Pasternack (the Anya and the Dragon duology) tells of a tender sibling bond set in the little-known medieval Jewish empire of Khazaria. In the city of Atil, newly 12-year-old Ziva bat Leah is desperate to keep her brilliant, beloved twin brother, Pesah, from dying of leprosy. Inventive Pesah is kept in a house of his own on the Jewish family's property, but when the siblings' doctor uncle recommends that Pesah be sent to a far-flung colony, Ziva packs the siblings up and hits the road, hoping to find a cure. They soon meet up with a half-sheydim boy with whom they travel, but they're racing against time, and the long journey is shadowed quite literally by Malach hamavet—the Angel of Death himself. Pasternack shows how Ziva's love of justice drives her, while depicting a world in which spirits are manifest, healers come in many forms, and a bold girl can literally bargain with the Angel of Death. Tenderly rendering Ziva's feelings of responsibility—including around Pesah's physical care and amputating his infected fingers and toes—Pasternack imagines a rich, omen-filled journey that powerfully shows love and its limits. A contextualizing afterword and glossary conclude. Ages 8–12.
